12 Oct

Five Reasons Why Websites Fail

Many of us get frustrated with our websites. We start them and have trouble finding time to commit to them. We devote hours and still we don’t get traffic. We put AdSense or affiliate links on the site, and it still doesn’t generate revenue. What are we doing wrong?

There are so many reasons a website can fail. The first one is lack of SEO. You can have the best website in the world, and if the search engine doesn’t realize that then all your work is for nothing.

SEO is learnable. You can DIY if you have the time, or hire it done if you have the money. Most people do a blend of both – focus their own energies where they feel competent, and pay an expert in other strategies to pick up the slack.

The second reason a website can fail is because the market is too competitive. Sometimes you just can bring enough leverage to bear against monster companies with unlimited budgets and teams of experts devoted to the top dog spot.

In this case, you can either specialize and find a niche, or you can look for another service or product to provide (or another demographic to target). For example, if ‘shoes’ is too tough a market to break into, try ‘shoes for dancing seniors’ or something like that.

Third reason: sloppy linking. If your links are broken or inoperable, you may as well resign yourself top the fact that you are losing potential customers right and left. Most people confronted with a 404 message will click away and try the next result on the SERPs.

You can avoid this by simply checking all your internal links whenever possible, and especially after tampering with any urls on your site. Periodically run a back link check as well to be sure your links out on the web are operating correctly.

The fourth reason websites fail is due to a bad homepage. If your home page is slow to load, crowded or cluttered looking, or contains glaring errors such as typos or inaccurate information, the trust in your site will be reduced immediately. Trust is a huge part of web commerce, and you can’t afford to lose any.

Make sure your home page load time is fast, and avoid having too many graphics or ads distracting your customer’s eye. You want them to focus on YOU, and how YOU can help them. Show them how they can easily get what they want if they relax and trust you.

The fifth but by no means final reason websites fail is because they are not user friendly. If your site is hard to navigate, they will leave. If the information is presented in a boring manner, they will leave. If links are not clearly marked, they will leave. If you don’t make it easy and engaging for them to get what they need, they will leave AND NEVER COME BACK.

Do you see why it is so important to build your website carefully and with attention to detail? Without the correct optimization (both for the search engine and the user) a website is just another batch of pages on the internet. You want yours to shine!